4.2. Infesting bees with HBTM

Mark bees with
paint on their abdomens or numbered tags glued to their thoraces shortly after
emergence. Paint applied to the bees’ thoraces may interfere with migration of
mites into their tracheae.

Introduce them to
infested colonies preferably at dusk. Otherwise, screen the hive entrances for
1-2 h to prevent their rejection. Giordani (1962) referred to this method as infestation expérimentale. It has served
as the method of obtaining infested bees to study the life history of the mite
(Pettis and Wilson, 1996), host age-preference (Morgenthaler, 1931; Lee, 1963;
Gary et al., 1989), caste preference
(Dawicke et al., 1992), relative
resistance of bees from different genetic sources (Page and Gary, 1990; Danka
and Villa, 1999; Nasr et al., 2001),
and the effects of mites on adult bees (Bailey and Lee, 1959; Gary et al., 1989).